The week before Songkran was no holiday for Yala. The provincial capital was hit by coordinated bomb attacks on Sunday, and more on Monday. The large, destructive bombs killed one person and wounded 28. Clearly, the attacks had goals other than murder.
The first was to cause economic damage, and the two days of attacks were successful. The head of the local Chamber of Commerce, Noppong Theeraworn, estimated damage at 300 million baht in money, and more than a year in time just to get everything repaired back to where it was a week ago, before the bombs.
"These are the most severe attacks ever inflicted on our town's economy," he said.
Some businesses will grimace and bear it. Upatham Sirichai, who inherited the warehouse firm Sri Samai from his parents, vowed to rebuild and get on with it.